September 7, 2009 - A SAFER Kind of Spacewalk

A SAFER Kind of Spacewalk Seen here against a backdrop of clouds some 130 nautical miles below him, astronaut Mark Lee floats, completely untethered, away from the safety of the space shuttle Discovery. The STS-64 mission, launched fifteen years ago this week, saw Lee testing the new Simplified Aid for EVA Rescue (SAFER) system. SAFER was designed to be used in the event that a crew member inadvertantly becomes untethered while conducting an extravehicular activity. The small, self-contained propulsive backpack, which is still in use today, provides enough free-flying mobility for a spacewalker to return to the shuttle in an emergency if he or she cannot be retrieved by any other means. The STS-64 crew also deployed and later retrieved the SPARTAN-201 astronomy satellite.